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Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Soils and Sediments brings together the world's leading ecologists, systematists, and evolutionary biologists to present scientific information that integrates soil and sediment disciplines across terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems. It offers a framework for a new discipline, one that will allow future scientists to consider the linkages of biodiversity below-surface, and how biota interact to provide the essential ecosystemservices needed for sustainable soils and sediments. Contributors consider key-questions regarding soils and sediments and the relationship between soil- and sediment- dwelling organisms and overall ecosystem functioning. The book is an important new synthesis for scientists and researchers studying a range of topics, including global sustainability, conservation biology, taxonomy, erosion, extreme systems, food production, and related fields. In addition, it provides new insight and understanding for managers, policymakers, and others concerned with global environmental sustainability and global change issues.

"A path-breaking book that provides a remarkable cross-disciplinary synthesis of the state of science in this field and compelling evidence for the need to better understand these systems is we are to successfully manage ecosystem services."--Walter Reid "director, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment "

The need for understanding how biodiversity and ecosystem functioning affect ecosystem services in soils and sediments

p. 1

Ecosystem processes and the sustainable delivery of goods and services

p. 13

The sustainable delivery of goods and services provided by soil biota

p. 15

Ecosystem services provided by freshwater benthos

p. 45

Marine sedimentary biota as providers of ecosystem goods and services

p. 73

Assessment of the vulnerability of critical below-surface habitats, functions, and taxa

p. 99

Vulnerability to global change of ecosystem goods and services driven by soil biota

p. 101

Vulnerability and management of ecological services in freshwater systems